Finish Line
by Ellyrianna
Summary: The morning after. 'With her, he was ready for anything.' Luby.


**Finish Line**

_hello friend, it's been too long_

"Hey, Chief."

Luka rolled over in bed and opened his eyes. Abby was smiling at him, her hands tucked under her head, one of the pillows beaten and bludgeoned so many times that it looked like a sad, defeated prisoner of war suffocating under her dark brown hair. She had been dyeing it a darker color lately, he noticed hazily, fighting with the sleep in his mind. He always noticed everything about her, kept track of the little things – always had, since their first date, when he'd killed that thief. It was a habit of his; an act of nature.

"Hey," he repeated, using the other version he had of the word – short, laughing, eyes closing briefly. The sensuous, rolling 'hey' he liked to impose on potential one-night stands had no place here – here was real; here was whole, not a fractured account defined only by beer and clumsy, reused one-liners. "You look happier this time."

Her smile retreated a little. "You don't want me to?" If Luka hadn't been looking at her, he wouldn't have known that she was being serious.

With trepidation in his eyes, he reached out for her hand. Wordlessly, it was given. "Why would you think that?" he asked quietly, and his accent was more pronounced in his state of induced lethargy.

She shrugged and turned over onto her back, pulling her hand away. "I don't know," she muttered, folding her arms over the blankets. "I'm just hypersensitive lately, I guess. And after the wedding…" She grinned ruefully at him. "I'm being a girl."

"You're kidding," he said, edging closer to her and abruptly enfolding her in his arms. "I couldn't tell." His mouth was against her ear, and her hair moved and whispered against the sensitive skin there. She squirmed around in his embrace, morphing and twisting, until his mouth was away from her ear and she was caressing the back of his neck, his breath now on her collarbone.

They lay like that for several quiet minutes, completely still, and Abby wondered if Luka had fallen back asleep – after all, she herself was very tired, and she wouldn't blame him if he did.

A sudden thought occurred to her, and she couldn't control herself – as soon as it was in her head, it was coming out of her mouth.

"I tried to see you."

She felt the flutter of his eyelashes against her skin.

"What?"

"When you came home. From Africa," she clarified, running a hand through his hair.

He was too tired to try and sort through the foggy details of that day. "You did come see me. I was trying to walk around, and you thought you'd missed me, and I said…"

"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "Before that. When you came back, and were being taken upstairs – I kept trying to get to you, but things kept getting in the way." Something in her mind clicked, and she said softly, "Kind of like what's been happening to us lately."

Luka pulled his head away from her hand and looked up, blinking the last remnants of sleep out of his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said bluntly.

"For what?" Abby asked, confused.

"Beating around the tree."

"Bush," she murmured, suppressing her laughter.

"Everything with Sam…I should have realized it wasn't working out, that I was coming on too strong." He paused, searching through his thoughts. "That I'm not made for long-term relationships."

"We were long-term," Abby said stoutly, not at all liking the turn the conversation had taken.

"We broke up. Because of me."

"We were happy."

"Were we?"

"Yeah," Abby said flatly, sitting up in bed and pulling the blankets up with her. "Luka, why are you asking this? Weren't you happy when we were together?"

He remained lying down, but rolled over onto his back. Putting his hands behind his head, he replied, "I was. When we broke up, I couldn't get over it. I watched you…" He closed his eyes. "I don't think it's been as good since."

Abby bent down and, without hesitating, kissed him. One of his hands slid out from under his head and held her neck, keeping her where she was. The kiss deepened, no longer delicate, and after a minute she put a hand where his was on her neck and carefully edged it off.'

Sitting up with slightly quickened breathing, she asked, "That wasn't good?"

He laughed – a rolling, gruff, completely jovial sound. "That was great," he answered honestly.

* * *

They walked into County talking in short sentences interrupted by laughter over slightly steaming cups of coffee. He wore the same clothes from the day before, and she had lent him one of her scarves because of the snow that had started the night before. She had snickered when he'd put the purple scarf around his neck, but, being a good sport, had proudly replied that real men were not afraid to wear purple. Neela was on call despite her wedding just the night before, and she shot Abby a look that clearly asked for details at a later time as they passed her on their way to the lounge. He held open the door for her, and she gave him a mock bow, heading in before him.

"What are you doing tonight?" Luka asked her after a minute of silence in which he had fought with his locker. It was open now, and he stowed both coat and scarf safely inside.

"I was going to fix up some photo albums before eating myself into a stupor. What about you?"

"Clean the apartment," he replied, sounding less than thrilled.

"Want a distraction?" She shot him a sly grin around the open door of her locker and threaded her stethoscope around her neck.

"Only if you do," he said, completely serious. Abby admired the way he was attempting to not come on too strong, a fault which he had earlier declaimed, and with an inward smile she closed the locker, locked it, and sidled up behind him.

"I do," she assured him, and he snorted his laughter. "What time? Where? What?"

He leaned back against her, and she rocked slightly back and forth, her cheek pressed up against his shoulder blade through the white coat stretched across his broad back.

"When we get off," he began thoughtfully, "the closest take-out place, my apartment, food, and then sex. Not necessarily in that order," he added, and she unwrapped her arms from around him and closed his locker by leaning against it. Together they threw away their empty Styrofoam cups and headed out towards the board.

"How about my apartment, leftovers, watch TV, and sex, not necessarily in that order?" Abby offered, sliding behind the desk and checking the chart rack. She handed Luka two of the four that were left and took the other two for herself.

"I like that one," he agreed, flipping through the two charts without registering what was written on them. "Saves money on the food."

"Where are you?" Abby pointed at the charts he held.

"Exams one and two," he said, checking. She made a face.

"I won't be seeing you anytime soon then. Want to get lunch later?" She was already out from behind the counter and heading for her first patient, but Luka caught her arm over the desk and halted her. She turned, grinning, and leaned over papers and folders to kiss him.

"Sure," he breathed against her lips when they broke apart. She gave him one last peck before spinning away, charts in hand and a silly, stupid smile on her face. Unfortunately, she happened to turn right into Sam, who stared at her, dumbfounded.

"Are you and Luka…?" She let the question trail, and her hand slowly started to drop, the suture kit she held dangling precariously in her now-limp fingers.

Abby opened her mouth to say something reassuring, noncommittal, something like "Oh, nothing serious," but all that she could think of was Luka after the nurse had unceremoniously and abruptly ended their relationship. The image of him falling asleep on his couch, head in his hand, still fully dressed and with one of his long cigarettes smoldering in the ashtray at his elbow, was fixated in her mind.

"Yeah," she said suddenly, almost viciously. Her tone was so different from what she normally used that Sam blinked once, fast, as if slapped. "We are."

With that, she turned quickly away and headed to her first patient, trying to make the burning in her face ease away.

* * *

Abby was waiting by the ambulance bay doors for him, and he quickened his pace to meet her. He had thrown her scarf hastily around his neck, and she pushed herself up on her toes slightly to wrap it more securely in place.

"It's cold," she explained, giving it a satisfied pat and motioning to the doors. "Ready?"

He looked at the doors, at the snow coming down steadily outside, and then back at Abby, her face shining and sublimely happy. Just seeing that expression of supreme happiness made him crack a smile of his own.

"Yeah. Let's go."

With her, he was ready for anything.


End file.
